This record drops hints like anvils plummeting from the sky. Produced by Jack White....engineered by Brendan Benson...licensed from Jack White's Third Man label and niffing pungently of all things Detroit. Ha! Yes, it's The Soledad Brothers all over again, isn't it? We know exactly what it'll sound like....no bass, heavy bluesy Led Zep riffs, mordant drums....
Noooooo!! Stop right there!! See, this is the problem with soundbites and the media world we all inhabit nowadays. Because of a record's pedigree, we all supposedly know EXACTLY what it sounds like before we've heard a note, yet if you work with this principle where WHIRLWIND HEAT are concerned, well it's 2+2=25 time, basically.
I mean, since when did anything Jack White produce be notable for a gargantuan bass-infused rumble? Or when did he ever work with a drummer who slams away like The Buzzcocks' John Maher letting off rockets with a farmload of fleas down his trews? And when did he ever previously produce a record where a short-circuiting Moog takes the place of down'n'dirty guitars? Because, wimps, that's what you're confronted with here. It's by no means anything like the supposed sound of Detroit, but it's ace. Get used to it.
And if you think that sounds scary, then flip it over if you dare. "Stunning Evaseev", the dainty B-side, rides in on waves of weirdo noise that would even have scared Pere Ubu's noise boffin Allen Ravenstine and proceeds to go into meltdown via all manner of warped riffery and atonal free jazz while 'singer' David Swanson emotes like he's being dangled from a Cessna while having his balls rubbed with a Sure stick deoderant. It's, er, not somewhere everyone might choose to go, but if you're up for a challenge, this coule well be your bag.
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WHIRLWIND HEAT, then, are one nasty bastard head-checker where the cliched 'sound of Detroit' is supposedly concerned, but they're a thunderous trio who - on the basis of this - deserve a place on any self-respecting noisenik's shelf. On the downside, they also appear to have a weird penchant for the strangest posters this side of the Dead Kennedy's-related "Penis Landscape", but when the noise is this delicious we can make allowances.
So, in summation, should we throw this filth at our pop kids? Unequivocal 'Yes'!!
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